A vast Southbank car park the size of the MCG will be transformed into a citadel of apartments, hotels and commercial office towers under final plans put forward by a Malaysian developer.

The two-hectare block bound by the Westgate Freeway, Kavanagh, Balston and Power streets will have four residential towers (up to 226 metres), a commercial office and multi-storey hotel, if approved by Planning Minister Richard Wynne.

More than 2600 apartments will be built in the complex, along with a 621-room hotel, in a billion-dollar project that listed Malaysian group PD Development Holdings expects to begin work on as soon as permits are granted.

The company has listed construction of a 145-metre strata-titled commercial office tower, supermarket, childcare centre, gym and shops as an early priority.

The city-sized block is the largest undeveloped site in Southbank, a locality south of the Yarra River where at least three similar-sized towers are under construction and another seven skyscrapers have been given planning approval.

The four residential towers, located near the ventilation stack and exit of the City Link road tunnel, will form the final leg of a great wall of skyscrapers hugging the West Gate Freeway along the Southbank's southern boundary.

The developer's plans suggest 17 per cent of the site will be made into public open space.

Melbourne is truly beginning to look big and Chicago-esque in the 3rd last pic - and to think that isn't even a fraction of all that's proposed in that view!

Not so sure about that. Melbourne's variation in street patterns and more organic designs in recent years don't make me see much of a comparison to Chicago. Quite frankly, I think Melbourne's outdoing it by a long shot in new architecture.

Well i was talking mainly about the skyline silhouette - especially once you consider that both have a gridded layout and have a river cutting through the skyline, then despite the obvious fact that one is currently larger than the other I think from certain angles the two skylines actually resemble each other pretty well in terms of their overall shape. But then like you said there are differences when it comes to architecture and streetscapes.

From Urban.melbourne, showing the context of approved (blue), proposed (red) and under construction (green) towers around Southbank. (river = black) This development is the cluster of blue towers at back centre.